Kalendarium (Click links for more information). "/> Kalendarium (Click links for more information). " />

Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

ENTERTAINMENT

Stockholm art gallery guide: May 16 – 22

Five weekend art gallery tips from Kalendarium (Click links for more information).

Published: 16 May 2008 14:47 CEST

Stockholm art gallery guide: May 16 - 22

Plastic Portrait:

In the exhibition Plastic Surgery, two sides of plastic surgery are portrayed. Using neutral backgrounds, the photographs are direct and unavoidable. You can see the women who have had plastic surgery on their faces and the men who have operated on them. Plastic Surgery invites you to a world full of empty looks and tight skin.

Substance and Emptiness:

Sirous Namazi’s art centres on emptiness. One of the series that constitutes the exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake is Untitled (Interiors), 7 photographs of a dark apartment. At first glance it reminds you of a monochrome oil painting but a room soon forms out of the emptiness. The exhibition at Hudiksvallsgatan focuses on minimalism, structures and social exclusion.

Gustaf Furst’s second exhibition at Galleri Niklas Belenius is called “Lost Counter-Story. Neither man of science, nor man of faith”. It has its starting point in his fascination for the TV series Lost, where mystique is commercialized and glorified. The series also touches on man’s fear of being left in nature.

Lynchesque Installation:

Sonja Nilsson’s inauguration to Natalia Goldin Gallery presents a transitional phase between two mental states. She has dressed the room in red drapes like David Lynch to use his symbolism to indicate this passage. In the middle of room there is a chessboard. According to the rules of chess the weak pawn becomes a strong queen if it crosses the entire board. It is simultaneously the beginning and the end of something.

Graphic community

The Mia Sundberg Galleri presents the thematic group exhibition Positiv Frihet (’Positive Freedom’) with graphic methods as a common denominator. Some of the artists in this workshop are established graphic artists while others are more often associated with other media.

Meet the Spanish rapper bringing flamenco and bossa nova into hip-hop

Spanish rapper Anton Alvarez known as 'C. Tangana' poses in Madrid on April 29, 2021. Photo: Javier Soriano/AFP

The 30-year-old has emerged as one of the world’s biggest Spanish-language stars since his third album “El Madrileno” — the Madrilenian — came out in February. That ranks him alongside his superstar ex-girlfriend Rosalia, the Grammy-winning Catalan singer with whom he has co-written several hits.

C. Tangana, whose real name is Anton Alvarez Alfaro, has come a long way since a decade ago when he became known as a voice of disillusioned Spanish youth in the wake of the financial crisis.These days his rap is infused with everything from reggaeton and rumba to deeply traditional styles from Spain and Latin America, with a voice often digitised by autotune.

“It’s incredible that just when my music is at its most popular is exactly when I’m doing something a bit more complex, more experimental and less
trendy,” he told AFP in an interview.

And he is unashamed to be appealing to a wider audience than previously: his dream is now to make music “that a young person can enjoy in a club or someone older can enjoy at home while cooking”.

‘People are tired’

The rapper, who sports a severe semi-shaved haircut and a pencil moustache, has worked with Spanish flamenco greats including Nino De Elche, Antonio Carmona, Kiko Veneno, La Hungara and the Gipsy Kings.

In April he brought some of them together for a performance on NPR’s popular “Tiny Desk Concert” series, which has already drawn nearly six million
views on YouTube.

Shifting away from trap, one of rap’s most popular sub-genres, and venturing into a more traditional repertoire was a dangerous move — especially for someone with a young fanbase to whom rumba, bossa nova and bolero sound old-fashioned.

“I think people are tired. They’ve had enough of the predominant aesthetic values that have previously defined pop and urban music,” he said.

Parts of his latest album were recorded in Latin America with Cuban guitarist Eliades Ochoa of Buena Vista Social Club, Uruguayan
singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, Mexican folk artist Ed Maverick and Brazil’s Toquinho, one of the bossa nova greats.

“What struck me most everywhere I went was the sense of tradition and the way people experienced the most popular music, and I don’t mean pop,” he said.

A new direction

C. Tangana started out in 2006 rapping under the name Crema. When the global economic crisis swept Spain a few years later, hard-hitting trap was
the perfect way to voice the angst of his generation. But after more than a decade of rapping, things changed.

“When I was heading for my 30s, I hit this crisis, I was a bit fed up with what I was doing… and decided to give voice to all these influences that I
never dared express as a rapper,” he said.

The shift began in 2018 with “Un veneno” (“A poison”) which came out a year after his big hit “Mala mujer” (“Bad woman”).

And there was a return to the sounds of his childhood when he used to listen to Spanish folk songs at home, raised by a mother who worked in
education and a journalist father who liked to play the guitar. The Latin American influences came later.

“It started when I was a teenager with reggaeton and with bachata which were played in the first clubs I went to, which were mostly Latin,” he said.

Studying philosophy at the time, he wrote his first raps between stints working in call centres or fast-food restaurants.

As to what comes next, he doesn’t know. But one thing he hopes to do is collaborate with Natalia Lafourcade, a Mexican singer who dabbles in folk, rock and pop — another jack of all musical trades.

Url copied to clipboard!